Reaction to bills mailed out this week for the city’s fiscal year 2012 trash-collection fee was swift and overwhelmingly negative.

Adopted last June by the City Council during passage of the FY12 budget, the last-minute measure was inserted to fill what former Mayor Charles Crowley described as an unexpected $1.3 million fiscal gap.

The miscalculation was due to higher costs resulting from changes in federal health-insurance rules, Crowley said at the time.

By adopting the fee, which some have argued is a tax, Crowley was able to avoid laying off more than 50 police officers and firefighters. The alternative — doubling the price of curbside trash bags to $2 apiece — was never seriously considered by the council.

But it wasn’t until February 2012 that an ordinance was passed allowing the fee to be enforced — an oversight that left various officials pointing fingers at one another.

The bottom line for homeowners finally arrived this week after bills were mailed out Tuesday.

The fee for a single-family dwelling is $73; for a two-family $146; a three-family $219 and a four-family $292. Payment is due May 31.

Since Wednesday, angry residents have been stopping off and leaving phone messages for Mayor Thomas Hoye at Taunton’s temporary city hall (located on Oak Street in the former Maxham School building).

“It’s been nonstop,” said the mayor’s secretary Mimi Punda.

Despite a series of stories on the subject during the past year, many people appear to be have been caught unaware.

“When I got it (the trash-fee bill) in the mail, I was like ‘What the heck is this?’” said Jim Bizarro, a Taunton resident for nearly 12 years.Bizarro said he works out of town and simply had no idea he was going to get a trash-fee bill.

“I can’t imagine everybody knows about it,” he added.

Bizarro, 42, who lives in Taunton with his wife and daughter, also said he’s unhappy that no precise explanation — other than fee amounts and an explanation of abatement/exemption requirements — is included on the bill.

“That drives me a little bit nuts,” he said.

Some residents have been confused as to where to go either to pay their bill or pick up an abatement application.

Assessor Barry Cooperstein said employees in his office have had to contend with people asking for abatement applications; anyone looking for an application needs to go to the Department of Public Works on Ingell Street, he said.

The DPW, meanwhile, has at times been so inundated with disgruntled homeowners that Taunton Police Chief Edward Walsh paid a personal visit on Wednesday.

“It’s a unique situation,” said Walsh, who said he offered tips to DPW employees on how to handle people who are angry and upset.

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Water division supervisor Cathal O’Brien said the DPW staff “has been able to treat people with respect,” despite the trash fee being a “hot-button item.”

Anyone who simply wants to pay their bill can do so online, by check or in person at the tax collector’s office at 55 Weir St.

Abatements are available for owners who can document they spend at least six months away from their property or have owned a multifamily property with at least one vacant unit for the previous 12 months.

A hardship abatement covers anyone age 70 or older who is entitled to an exemption under a Chapter 59 Massachusetts General Law.

Cynthia Fleming, 77, drove in from Hanson, where she now lives, to get information about an abatement for the Taunton house in which she grew up that she still owns.

“I just can’t believe it,” Fleming said. “Paying for trash pickup for that amount is unbelievable. In all my years I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Fleming was advised by a DPW employee that because it will take as long as a month for her application to be assessed, she should probably pay the bill with the expectation of being reimbursed.

City Councilman David Pottier, who was absent the night the fee was adopted — but who indicated he opposed former Mayor Crowley’s budget — said the city could have done a better job of informing residents.

“It was handled poorly,” said Pottier, who added that he blames the former administration and its law office for not ensuring that an ordinance was passed.

Pottier also contends the city has denied homeowners ample opportunity under state law to legitimately opt out — as per the Department of Revenue’s “division of local services” user fees.

The DOR states that a person paying the fee “must have the option of not utilizing the service, thus avoiding the charge.”

Pottier said the months since the ordinance was adopted fly in the face of that rule.

City Solicitor Jason Buffington said any senior citizen previously qualifying for the hardship abatement automatically is eligible for the trash-fee abatement — despite the fact that application deadline date for that abatement was April 30.

Natalia Augusto said that she and her family can barely keep up with their $3,000 mortgage payment can’t afford the $292 fee for their four-family house.

Augusto, 45, said her husband works construction and is often out of work for weeks and months at a time. She collects disability since undergoing triple-bypass surgery a few years ago.

“It’s just another ripoff,” said Augusto, who added that she is trying to organize a protest at city hall.

In addition to herself and her husband, Augusto said she rents one apartment to her son and another to woman who is legally blind and has a child.

Gracie Sampson, 46, said that the house she and her husband, a Boston bus driver, own is already in default with their lender.

“They should have given us more time,” she said.

Sampson, who has two daughters, said she doesn’t keep up with local news on a daily basis — which she said is all more the reason the city should have sent out notices once the ordinance passed last February.

She said she’s not optimistic that she’ll be able to pay the fee in time.

“It ain’t gonna happen in this household, I’ll tell you that,” she said.